Reflections, commentaries, critiques and ideas from 40 years experience in the fields of Community Development, Community Education and Social Justice. Useful tools and techniques that I have learnt also added occassionally.

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The name of this blog, Rainbow Juice, is intentional.The rainbow signifies unity from diversity. It is holistic. The arch suggests the idea of looking at the over-arching concepts: the big picture. To create a rainbow requires air, fire (the sun) and water (raindrops) and us to see it from the earth.Juice suggests an extract; hence rainbow juice is extracting the elements from the rainbow, translating them and making them accessible to us. Juice also refreshes us and here it symbolises our nutritional quest for understanding, compassion and enlightenment.

Wednesday, 14 December 2016

Appropriate Transport

In the 1960s Dr E.F. Schumacher (a British economist) coined the term
appropriate technology. The term was popularised in his 1973 book Small is Beautiful: A study of economics as if people
mattered1 and generally refers to technology that is
small-scale, decentralised, labour-intensive, energy-efficient and
environmentally sound.

Forty years later we are still coming up with new, efficient, technological
innovations in many areas, including transport. But few of them are
appropriate. Take the self-contained personal mobility unit (aka the car) as an
example. Since Henry Ford rolled out the Model T in the early part of the 20th
century cars have become more and more efficient. All these efficiency gains
have led to vast numbers of cars, more cars per household, greater number of
trips in cars, huge expanses of land set aside for roads, highways and parking
lots, urban sprawl, and a rapid rise in carbon emissions into the
atmosphere.

The next step in the efficiency drive is the hybrid or EV vehicle. Much more
efficient that the present gas-guzzling car. Isn’t that wonderful? Well, not
really. Greater efficiency, as has been demonstrated over and over, leads to
greater consumption. It just is not appropriate.

Are we overlooking something? We already have an appropriate transport
device, and we’ve had it since
the mid 1800s, although its forerunner – the Dandy Horse – first appeared in
1817. Its called a bicycle.
Lets consider some of the many benefits this appropriate transport technology
has:

Low carbon emissions. The bicycle is not carbon-free. Estimates are that
production and maintenance of a bicycle accounts for some 5 grams of CO2e per
kilometre. If the “fuel” costs of the cyclist are taken into account then a
cyclist burns approximately an extra 16 grams CO2e per kilometre. Hence, for every
kilometre ridden the cycle emits roughly 21g/km. Similar mathematics indicate
that an average car (taking into account occupancy levels) emits 271g/km – thirteen times that of a cycle. A bus, by
comparison emits 101g/km.2

Monetary savings. A report by the Australasian Railway Association in 2015
indicated that by not owning a car in Australia or New Zealand the
average commuter could save between $9,000 – $10,000 per year.3 When arriving
at this conclusion the authors did not take account of other costs such as toll
road fees, non-compulsory insurance, or environmental and congestion costs.

Safety. Research in Europe shows that when cycling increases, the safety of
cyclists also increases. Between 2000 and 2008 London saw a 91% increase in
cycling and a 33% decrease in cycling casualties. Cycling in the Netherlands
increased 45% between 1980 and 2005. In that same period the number of cycling
fatalities decreased by 58%. There are many reasons for this correlation. Two
major factors are that the more cyclists there are the more visible cyclists
become and the more the pressure for
authorities to make cycling safer (e.g. by building dedicated cycle ways).

Effective Speed. Is the car really getting us from A to B quicker than the
bicycle? The answer is yes and no. On the surface it would appear that we get
from A to B quicker. But, when we dig deeper we find that the gains are not
there. In 2004 Paul Tranter (from the School of Physical, Environmental and
Mathematical Sciences, UNSW, Canberra) prepared a report for the Australian
Department of Environment and Heritage entitled Effective Speeds. The
sub-title provocatively claimed that Car Costs are Slowing Us
Down.4 Tranter took into account a more complete analysis of
speed. If we remember our school mathematics we recall that speed is calculated
by dividing the distance travelled by the time it took to travel that distance
(s = d/t). What Tranter noted was that the time element was not simply the
amount of time sitting behind the wheel of a car going from A to B. The true
time factor also includes the amount of time it takes to earn the money required
in order to get into the car in the first place. Tranter factored in the time
required to pay for the production and maintenance of the car. Using statistics
from the city of Canberra, Tranter calculated that the final effective speed of
a car was between 14 km/h and 23 km/h, depending upon the size of car.
Undertaking the same calculations with buses and cycles found that the effective
speed of buses is 21 km/h and 18 km/h for cycling. Indeed, the cycle
outperformed 3 of the 4 cars considered – the 4th being an Hyundai Getz. It
should be noted too that Tranter did not take into account the costs (and
therefore time) associated with having to pay speeding fines, parking tickets,
tolls, carpark fees, and perhaps hospital emergency ward costs.

Health Benefits. The health benefits of any exercise (cycling included) are
well known and I shall not elucidate them here, except to note that they need to
be considered when thinking about appropriate transport technology.

When we consider that half or more of the private trips taken by motorists in
cars in the rich nations of the world are of 5km or less then the use of the
bicycle as an appropriate transport source has a lot going for it. Using a
bicycle for trips of 5km or less will be less environmentally damaging, provide
the cyclist with health benefits, contribute to less congestion, require little room for parking, and very likely, much quicker.

There is no need to devise transport technology with greater efficiency – we
already have it. Lets use it.Notes:1. E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful: A study of economics as if people
mattered, Blond and Briggs, 1973. Published by Harper Collins since
2010.2. Benoit Blondel, Chloé Mispelon, Julian Ferguson, Cycle More Often 2
Cool Down The Planet, European Cyclists’ Federation, 2011.3. Australasian Railway Association, The Costs of Commuting: An analysis
of potential commuter savings, January 2015.

4. Paul J Tranter, Effective Speeds: Car Costs are Slowing Us Down,
a report for (Australian) Department of the Environment and Heritage, 2004.

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About Me

I have almost 40 years experience working (paid and unpaid, government and non-government) in community development/education and social justice fields. I have continued to keep myself abreast of philosophies and theories in these and related fields. This blogsite will offer ideas, thoughts, reflections on these fields as well as giving some tools and techniques. I don't pretend that these will be original but I do hope that they will be able to translate some of these diverse ideas into coherent forms accessible to workers in the areas.